


Necessary Pauses

by wetheresponsible



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Character Study, M/M, Wedding Fluff, but not for who you think
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-19
Updated: 2016-12-19
Packaged: 2018-09-09 19:57:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,059
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8909935
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wetheresponsible/pseuds/wetheresponsible
Summary: Fiancés Viktor Nikiforov and Katsuki Yuuri are moving to their new home by a river that runs through Lake Ladoga, on the outskirts of Saint Petersburg.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Wrote most of this before Episode 11, but I was vague enough that it isn't an AU just yet, at least in terms of Yuuri and Viktor's relationship. (Obviously, the plot of this departs from the canon).
> 
> I am posting this before Ep 12, but I won't be updating until the episode premieres. I'm trying to keep this as close to the canon as possible, just because I really think that all these characters are so wonderfully written.

Viktor wakes to upbeat bass and electric music over a raspy voice singing in Russian about love at first sight at a night club. His fiancé is a lighter sleeper, so when Viktor finally pries his eyes open, he sees a smooth expanse of a back, curving as a hand holds up Viktor’s work phone. The bright light of the screen, the only light emanating in their dark bedroom, shines on the groggy expression on the love of Viktor’s life.

“It’s Yaakov,” Yuuri says, then brings the phone closer to his eyes.

Viktor wants to tell him not to bring the screen too close to his eyes lest he ruin what’s left of his eyesight, but his throat closes around his voice roughly. He shouldn’t have had so much vodka after dinner last night. Instead, he tugs at Yuuri’s elbow, resolving to take the phone from him.

“It’s four a.m.,” Yuuri says, not quite a complaint and not quite an admonishment. He burrows back under the covers, tugging the thick layers of cloth well above his shoulders.

Viktor hates to interrupt Yuuri’s sleep. He hasn’t had the chance to have much lately, what with time difference and the stress of moving into a completely different country. Also, Viktor thinks that Yuuri had been upset with the job the installers had done yesterday, but had been constrained by that pesky language barrier to have voiced his opinion. The stress vibrating off of him had been virtually palpable.

But he also knows that Yaakov wouldn’t call at this hour for no good reason. He pushes himself upright, propping himself on the headboard.

“ _Hello?_ ” he answers, and immediately thinks the combination of Russian and the roughness of his voice makes him sound like his father.

“ _Vitya, come to Pirogov Clinic immediately_ ,” his coach responds frankly.

It’s like the seconds before landing a failed quad; his heart catches in his throat and he can’t breathe. “W-what?” he wheezes. Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Yuuri lower the blankets to peer up at him, eyebrows clinched in concern.

“ _It’s Yurochka_ ,” Yaakov continues gruffly. Whatever relief Viktor should feel knowing the old man is not hurt himself becomes void at the mention of Yuri Plisetsky.

“ _What’s wrong?_ ” Viktor says already pushing the covers off his body. He needs to get up. He needs to get dressed. Pirogov is at the heart of St. Petersburg and the drive down will take hours. Hours, and hours, and hours. Hours Viktor has no patience for.

“ _It’s his grandfather_ ,” Yaakov tells him. “ _He’s had a stroke_.”

* * *

 

Viktor doesn’t want to leave Yuuri alone in their bare house, isolated by a thicket of towering trees and the cold of the nearby river flowing into Lake Ladoga seeping into the very walls.

“You really can’t afford to be standing around like this,” Yuuri tells him. He lays a hand on the scarf wrapped around Viktor’s neck before untangling the cloth and sets about knotting it more firmly against Viktor’s throat. “You said the drive will take a while.”

“Why can’t you just come with me?” Viktor demands.

“I told you,” Yuuri says, an amused quirk at the corner of his mouth. “Yurio is as stressed as it is. Seeing me will just make things worse.”

“You’re exaggerating. Yurio doesn’t hate you,” Viktor disagrees.

Yuuri doesn’t look convinced but says nonetheless, “I’m still not his favourite person and right know he doesn’t need to see his least favourite people around.”

“I don’t think I’m Yurio’s favourite person,” Viktor says.

“Yaakov wouldn’t have called you if he didn’t think Yurio didn’t need you,” Yuuri counters and Viktor knows he’s defeated.

Sensing his success, his fiancé tugs on the knot he created with Viktor’s scarf and presses a kiss against his lips. “Go, Vitya,” he whispers.

“We’re on honeymoon,” Viktor mumbles against warm lips; a last ditch attempt at getting what he wants. “We’re not meant to be away from each other.”

Yuuri laughs, and the sound rings true and sonorous in the bareness of their house. “We have to be married to be on honeymoon,” he says.

Later, as Viktor reverses the Audi from their dirt driveway dotted with snow, he watches Yuuri watch him tenderly, leaning against the doorframe of their home.

* * *

 

Viktor and Yuri spend the first half an hour in the car in tense silence. Viktor thinks the sombre occasion calls for both their natural Russian austerity, but breaks after he can feel his shoulders rising to his ears. Hastily, he yanks the glove compartment open and rummages around for the few CDs he owns. Though he’s careful not to jostle Yuri, who is curled into a ball facing the passing scenery, the teenager frowns at him anyway.

Viktor answers by momentarily letting go of the steering wheel, an act that Yuuri protests loudly and always, but doesn’t even garner a change of expression from his current passenger. Hands free, he opens the case and slides the CD into the dock, clicking play when a confirmation appears at the dashboard screen.

Heavy bass filters clearly out through the car speakers, followed by a guitar and the beat of a drum. Yuri’s eyebrows raise.

“ _I didn’t know your taste in music wasn’t shit_ ,” he says. He’s speaking in Russian.

Despite himself, Viktor laughs. “ _Don’t judge a man by his skating soundtrack_.”

Yura scoffs at him but his shoulders are less tight and his fingers drum against his Doc Martens along to the beat of the song. 

> _‘You and I both know…Everything must go away…What do you say?’_  

* * *

 

To Viktor’s dismay, the ease that a whole album of the Red Hot Chili Peppers allows Yuri goes away as soon as they pull up into the driveway. By the time Viktor has him sitting in the kitchen, he looks just as he did back in Pirogov: furious and enraged at his surroundings.

There’s a dish in the oven and freshly washed bowls and plates at the dish rack; Yuuri had cooked dinner.

“You should eat,” Viktor says. “We both should eat. Wait here.”

“I’m not hungry,” Yuri spits.

Viktor frowns at him. “You’re an athlete, Yurio,” he says. “You need to eat right and keep healthy. Don’t let your spite get in the way of your regimen.”

The admonishment only adds fuel to the flame but Viktor leaves the kitchen before another insult can be hurled at his face. He looks up the staircase, but the open door to their bedroom shows the light switched off.

He walks to the side of the house, where he finds Yuuri sitting at the edge of the deck, Makkachin’s head lying on his lap. There’s a book opened and upturned by his side and without looking Viktor knows it’s Jean-Jacques Leroy’s recently published biography. Viktor didn’t survive the first two chapters of JJ explicitly stating the apparently obvious connections between Canadian pop music and figure skating mechanics, but Yuuri had continued on, only smiling whenever Viktor caught him reading and grimaced at him.

He always knew Yuuri was the stronger of the two of them.

“Darling,” he calls out. It takes Yuuri a couple of moments to turn. It always takes Yuuri a few moments to realise Viktor is calling him when he uses terms of endearment; as if Viktor will call anyone else such monikers.

“Oh, you’re home,” Yuuri says, moving to stand up. Makkachin is jostled awake and whines, but brightens when he notices Viktor. She trots up to him excitedly, barking and begging for attention. Viktor bends to scratch her healthily behind her ears and press kisses against her fur.

“Did you have a good time with dad?” he asks. “Were you a good girl for him?”

“I’m not her dad,” Yuuri says, as he watches them affectionately. There’s a blush rising in his cheeks and it’s probably from the biting St Petersburg weather, but it reminds Viktor of earlier days, when just the sight of him was enough for colour to blush his fiancé’s cheeks.

“I love you,” he says, looking up at the man he wants to marry. Makkachin licks at his cheek in he feels would be the same way a friend would shove a fool pathetically in love.

Yuuri laughs. “Silly man,” he says. “Did driving turn your insides into mush?”

“Ridiculous,” Viktor says, pushing himself upright. “My insides have been mush since I met you in Hasetsu.”

Yuuri is still laughing at him and Viktor leans forward to taste that laugh; a piece of sunny warmth amidst the winter chill. Faintly, he feels Makkachin slip through their legs and into the house, but is distracted by Yuuri hanging on to the knot of his scarf, keeping their mouths a hair’s width apart and foreheads against each other.

“Yurio’s inside?” he asks.

“Mm,” Viktor replies, trailing hands up and down Yuuri’s sides. “You cooked dinner. Let’s have dinner.”

Because of their proximity, he can feel the movement of Yuuri’s lips when they turn into a frown. “Maybe you should go ahead,” he says.

Viktor shakes his head. “No,” he says definitively. “This is our house. You don’t eat somewhere else for a guest. Even if it’s Yurio. This is our house, and when we have dinner you eat at our table, across from me. Always and forever.”

The frowns morphs into a smile that Viktor feels, too, and Yuuri says, “Mush. Vodka and mush is what Viktor Nikiforov is made of.”

Inside, Makkachin sits in the space between Yurio’s legs, basking in the attention he gives her.

“Careful,” Viktor warns, “now she knows who to beg for scraps.”

“Don’t you feed her?” Yuri accuses, but it’s vitriol is directed at Yuuri, who shrinks at the abuse.

“Of course we do,” Viktor pipes up. “Don’t be obvious, she’s heavier than your suitcase.”

“I made lasagne ravioli,” Yuuri says, moving around the table to the oven. “Let me just set the table.”

“Nope, the cook sits down,” Viktor says, grabbing his shoulders and ushering him to sit. “We’ll get the table ready.”

“We?” Yuri repeats. “I just got here, I don’t know where you keep your shit.”

“Well, if you’re going to stay here, it’s a good idea to find out,” Viktor sing-songs at him.

Yuri’s eyes narrow menacingly. “Fuck off,” he hisses.

The glass of juice Viktor had been pouring slams into the kitchen counter, orange juice spilling across the black granite.

“ _Don’t speak to me that way!_ ” he fumes. “ _You don’t get to speak to me that way. I know you’re hurting but you don’t get to talk to me like I’m some simpering idiot. I’m trying to help you. Why can’t you just be grateful?_ ”

“ _I didn’t ask to be here!_ ” Yuri bellows. “ _You brought me here!_ ”

“ _Instead of, what? Leaving you to sleep in the waiting room of that clinic, where you would have ruined your posture and gotten sore? Think of your body! You’re an athlete!_ ”

“ _Don’t pretend that you’re doing this out of some fit of compassion_ ,” Yuri retorts. “ _I know Yaakov called you and made you do this. Don’t pretend! I don’t need you to pretend! I don’t need your sympathy!_ ”

He stands abruptly, pushing the dinner bench back so harshly it skids loudly off the wooden panelling, and bolts out of the kitchen.

“Yurio!” Yuuri calls after him, standing up and swivelling to look at Viktor. “What did you say? What were you saying that got him so upset?”

Viktor stares at him, feeling cold and terrible. He didn’t mean to shout at Yuri. He knew he was in pain, worried sick for his grandfather, and scared to the point of desperation. Desperate people turned ugly and reckless, but they were in pain. He shouldn’t have shouted at a boy in pain.

“I didn’t even realise we were speaking in Russian,” he recites instead, frozen.

“Oh, Viktor,” Yuuri sighs, exasperated. He picks up the coat he had shucked just moments before and slips it back on, moving out of the kitchen.

“Where are you going?” Viktor asks.

“To follow him!” Yuuri exclaims. “It’s freezing outside and he ran out without a coat.”

“Oh my god,” Viktor says, stepping forward to follow him but halts when his socked foot steps into a puddle of orange juice.

“Yeah, clean that up,” Yuuri winces empathetically. “I’ll handle this. He couldn’t have gotten far. You stay here and clean up. That juice might stain the floors.”

Yuuri is proven right when he finds Yurio sitting in the passenger seat of the Audi, hood drawn over his head that he rests on bent knees.

Yuuri steels himself for the confrontation, forcing himself to be brave. He knows that he could never intimidate Yurio like Viktor sometimes manages to do, but he has to be strong enough not to let the boy push him away.

He slips into the backseat of the car and despite himself, sighs at the relief of the heating. At least Yurio had the sense to sulk in warmth.

“Get out,” Yurio says immediately. But it lacks any of the cruelty he had in his argument with Viktor. He sounds tired and worn thin, worked to the bone by exhausting anxiety. “Get out get out get out.”

Suddenly, Yuuri is struck with the realisation that he has never before felt like he understood Yurio until this moment. Even when they were competing for Viktor’s approval two years ago in Ice Castle, he had never felt like he could empathise with what the boy was feeling. Maybe it was too presumptuous of him to assume that he understood Yuri Plisetsky, but he could at least say with certainty that he knew what it felt like to be eaten up by the anxiety of a situation you had little to no control over.

“Yurio,” he began, “I readied the guest bedroom for you.”

The statement is clearly not what Yurio was expecting because he freezes visibly and after a moment croaks, “What?”

“I said I got the guest bedroom ready for you,” Yuuri repeats kindly. “I used the new sheets we bought before moving here but I was worried they would smell like a factory and feel gross. I washed them and added a bit of detergent so they at least feel less new.”

There’s another pregnant pause and then Yurio mutters, “What, you want an award for doing the laundry?”

“No,” Yuuri says. “I just wanted you to know. I did the same for the towels. They’re in the rack by the shower. The guest bedroom has a connecting bathroom. I think we have some extra toothbrushes, but I’d have to check the boxes.”

“What’s up with that, anyway?” Yuri sniffs, turning his head to narrow his eyes at Yuuri. “Why do you still have boxes everywhere?”

“It’s only been two weeks since we moved here,” Yuuri says.

“Two weeks isn’t enough for you to put your shit where it needs to go?” Yurio commented.

“There’s no hurry,” Yuuri shrugs.

Yuri stares at him, expression blank except for the pinch between his eyebrows. He stares for such a long time that Yuuri is wondering if he should give up and call Viktor back out. Then Yurio says, “Why did you move here?”

“What do you mean?” Yuuri asks. “Viktor and I are in engaged.”

“I know,” Yurio quipped. “But I thought you’d move back to Japan. To your town. With the hot springs.”

“It’s not fair to take Viktor away from St Petersburg,” Yuuri admits quietly. “He loves this city. This city loves him.”

“Not after you,” Yurio says. “Not as much.”

He doesn’t say it menacingly, just frankly, and yet Yuuri winces. He knows it’s true. He’s still amazed that two weeks has passed since they moved to Russia without incident. He doesn’t want to generalise, but he’s seen the papers. The tabloids that blamed him and his perverted ways for tempting St Petersburg’s prince into indignity. The chink in Viktor’s perfect armour was him.

“It’s not like there wouldn’t be discrimination in Japan,” Yuuri reasons.

“True,” Yurio nods. “But in Hasetsu, in your town, they love you more than enough. You and Viktor. They would have embraced you. You wouldn’t have to be living in the middle of the fucking woods.”

Yuuri smiles. It’s true. He’s always known that Yurio was perceptive.

“Yurio,” he says, as sweetly as he can manage, “if you stay with us until December, I’ll make sure you come home to Hasetsu with me and Viktor for Christmas.”

Another pause stretches between them, tense and unpredictable. Yurio’s voice is as tiny as Yuuri’s ever heard it when he says, “Promise?”

* * *

Yuuri shows Yurio where everything is in the guest bedroom and helps him set up. When the last of the meagre amount of clothes he brought is in the closet, Yuuri thinks he is about to be shown the door out, but Yurio flippantly tells him that Phichit and a few other skaters have posted some videos online.

“Really? I haven’t seen any,” he admits.

“I’m not surprised,” Yurio says, rolling his eyes. “You live in the middle of fucking nowhere.”

Yurio and him watch videos on Yurio’s MacBook Air, with Yurio making scathing remarks on the mistakes and performances of their peers while Yuuri nods along, listening. Yurio is in the middle of explaining how Guang-Hong Ji could have landed that combination cleaner when Yuuri notices Viktor watching them from the doorway. He’s got an unreadable expression on his face and when their eyes meet, he walks away.

Later that night, Yuuri lays awake in his side of the bed, staring at the ceiling. Even under the layers of blankets, he’s cold. He’s wearing Viktor’s sweatpants and a wool shirt underneath his old Oakland University hoodie.

He misses Japan. He misses understanding what people talk about in the streets and not having people stare at him funny when he talks. He misses knowing where things are and how to get there. He misses his friends. He misses his parents and his mom’s cooking. He misses the hot springs and skating in Ice Castle with the Nashigori family cheering him on. He misses it all with a burning ache that he’s been trying so hard to ignore.

Viktor slips into the room a bit later. He stands at the foot of the bed and strips. They meet eyes and at first Yuuri thinks that Viktor is trying to initiate something but there’s a glassiness that makes Yuuri begin to suspect something else. Viktor strips all the way down to his underwear, still European and tiny. Then he crawls into the bed, underneath the covers next to Yuuri and Yuuri knows.

He smells like vodka. Stronger than he did the night previous, when it was just casual drinking while he flipped channels on their newly cable-connected television. No, tonight, Viktor smells like he’s finished too much.

“Don’t say anything,” he rasps. “I’m regretting it already.”

“I wasn’t going to say anything,” Yuuri says, turning to look at him. Viktor is looking up at the ceiling. The slope of his nose and the length of his eyelashes are so pronounced in this angle.

“I’m sorry,” Viktor says, and he squeezes his eyes shut, making those gloriously long lashes meet. “I shouldn’t be drinking. I shouldn’t have drunk this much.”

Yuuri turns lewd and embarrassing when drunk but Viktor turns sombre and apologetic when well and truly plastered. It settles a different kind of ache from homesickness at the bottom of Yuuri’s belly and he sidles closer to his fiancé, wrapping an arm across that broad chest and rests his head at the crook of his shoulder.

“You probably shouldn’t have,” Yuuri allows. “It’s not good that your immediate reaction to bad situations is drinking.”

“I’m sorry,” Viktor says and his voice catches.

Yuuri presses a kiss to his collarbone. “Viktor Nikiforov, stop apologising,” he chastises. “I love you so much and you’re so very gorgeous.”

It takes a moment but then Viktor laughs. It’s quiet and short, but it’s a start.

“You only love me for my body,” he says.

“Of course!” Yuuri agrees. “I love this body. You’re the seventeenth sexiest man in the world!”

“What?” Viktor laughs, and this time he does sound more amused. “That’s a lot lower a ranking than I expected from the love of my life.”

“Not according to me!” Yuuri defends, holding up his head to gaze down at Viktor. “According to GQ magazine.To me, you’re the sexiest, sexiest man to have ever walked this earth.”

Viktor’s expression softens. He caresses the back of Yuuri’s neck and cajoles him closer. Viktor kisses him languidly and slowly; it’s wet and lazy, and he tastes so strongly of vodka but Yuuri is so enamoured by him that he melts against him.

“Baby, I love you so much,” Viktor says. “I can’t believe you’re with me, baby. You’re so good to me.”

Yuuri recognises his tone and pulls away, blushing at the line of spit that connects their mouths together. “I don’t think we should have sex, Viktor,” he says hesitantly. “I remember that these walls are made of wood and Yurio will definitely hear us.”

Viktor huffs. He had been raising his head to meet Yuuri halfway but now he flops back against the pillow, frowning.

“You don’t want to have sex with me drunk,” he says.

“Mm, don’t cherry pick,” Yuuri says. He presses his thumb against the lines that have formed between Victor’s eyebrows, only to watch those lines appear again in confusion.

“Cherry pick?” Victor echoed. “What are you saying?”

“It’s a kind of fallacy,” Yuuri says, smiling. “It means using selective evidence to persuade a certain truth.”

Victor whistles, an amused expression forming on his face. “Sometimes it really shows which one of us went to university,” he says. “For a second there I thought I was so drunk you weren’t making sense.”

“No.” Yuuri presses a kiss to his chest. “But you are drunk, Vitya.”

Victor runs a hand through Yuuri’s hair, untangling the knots that have formed and watching his fiancé’s eyes go predictably heavy. “I know,” he says. “I know I shouldn’t be.”

Yuuri nods. “Not like this,” he agrees. “What’s the matter?”

Victor’s hand stills at the nape of Yuuri’s neck. He looks gorgeous like this; his protégé. What little moonlight that streaks into the room frames the brown of Yuuri’s eyes perfectly and he can see the concern and trepidation so clearly in them.

“I feel bad about shouting at Yurio,” Victor admits, muttering. “I shouldn’t have. He’s hurting. He doesn’t mean to be so terrible.”

“You really shouldn’t have,” Yuuri says, then kisses Victor’s hand to soften the admonishment. “But that’s what family does to people.”

Victor blinks. “What?” he croaks.

“It happens to everyone,” Yuuri shrugs. “Everyone thinks they’re tough but more often than not something happens with their family and they’re spiralling. It happens to me, too. It’s always family that cuts deep.”

"Yura isn't family,” Victor says.

The face Yuuri gives him is perhaps too condescending for ten o’clock in the evening whilst Victor is so disgustingly drunk and in the midst of having an actual important conversation.

“Oh, Vitya,” Yuuri says, chidingly. “Don’t kid yourself, coach.”

* * *

The next morning, Yuuri wakes up to an empty bed. Makkachin has curled herself around him in his sleep and when he reaches a hand over her body to grasp Victor, his fingers touch nothing but silk sheets.

“Eh?” he sees, pushing himself upright. “Where’s your dad?” he asks Makkachin, who stares up at him blankly.

A quick tour of the house and he finds Yurio’s bedroom empty, too. He tries calling Victor but all he gets is his voicemail all three times. Desperately, he tries to call Yurio but the boy had never answered his calls before and he doubts today was the day things were changing. Even if he had spent the night in his house.

“Where are they?” he wonders out loud, frustrated.

Makkachin trails ahead of him, into the living room. Yuuri follows and finds her sitting expectantly by her food bowls.

“Priorities, I guess,” he says, pocketing his phone. He bends to pick up the bag of Pedigree when he sees the post-it note on the front of the bag.

 _Baby_ , it reads. _お早う! At the rink. Brought Yurochka with me. Be back for lunch. Love you, V_.

Yuuri smiles at the shaky kanji and the endearment. Makkachin barks and nudges her head against his side to remind him why she brought him out to the living room in the first place. Yuuri pockets the note and pours her her breakfast, running his fingers through soft, thick fur in contemplation afterwards.

Viktor and Yurio going to the rink wasn’t that unusual. In fact, Viktor had visited his old rink as often as he had the chance since they had moved to St Petersburg. Yurio had been present each time, face as cross as ever.

But he was worried about the timing of all of it. He supposes that the two could have worked out whatever it was that happened between them that lead to Yuuri shoving a tray of perfectly good lasagne ravioli in the fridge uneaten, but he didn’t want to assume. Also, he doubted the probability of such a thing happening.

“Oh, god,” he utters, realisation dawning on him. “Those two aren’t mature enough to handle this responsibly! Oh, my god. Makkachin, come! We have to get to the rink right away!”

Almost two hours later, he finds himself trying to explain to the stern rink receptionist that he isn’t some obsessed Japanese Viktor fan, he’s the man’s actual fiancé. He’s just about to gesture to the gold ring on his finger for the fourth time when a heavily accented voice calls out his name. It’s a Mila Babicheva. Yuuri hasn’t seen her this close since the banquet after last year’s Grand Prix Final. Her red hair has grown a little bit, enough for her to twist it into a bun atop her head. She must be here for training, but she’s got a sports bag over her shoulder and a jacket on. She looks like she’s about to leave.

“Dobroye utro, Mila!” Yuuri greets, bowing. “It’s nice to see you again.”

“It’s nice to see you too,” Mila grins. “Is it—er, ooh-hi-yow goo-sign-mas?”

“ _Ohayogazaimasu_ ,” Yuuri corrects kindly.

The correction doesn’t seem to deter Mila at all. If anything, she smiles even brighter. “I see!” she says. “It’s so good to learn new things. Do you wish to see Viktor?”

Yuuri nods. “Yes, I came to see him and um, Yuri. The other Yuri.”

“The Russian Yuri,” Mila laughs, then purses her lips. “You’ll find them in the same place. This is why I’m leaving. Come with me, I’ll take you.”

Yuuri doesn’t understand the correlation of her leaving with Viktor and Yurio but follows gratefully. The receptionist calls out to him in Russian, but Mila answers back in Russian, before pulling him through the changing room doors.

“She thinks you are a wild fan,” she shares.

Yuuri sighs. “I guessed that.”

“Maybe you should have shown her your ring,” Mila says.

Mila leads him to the rink; wherein Yuuri can only tell where he is because of the sudden drop in temperature rather than the change of environment. The rink is more populated than Yuuri is used to, even when he was training in Detroit, but it really is crowded today. There’s a mass of people gathering around the rim of the ice-rink, all murmuring in Russian.

“What’s going on?” Yuuri asks.

Mila rolls her eyes. “The reason I decided to leave,” she says vaguely, before grabbing his wrist. “Come, come.”

Mila shoulders her way through the throng of people, dragging an embarrassed Yuuri to the very front of the crowd. People instantly move back into whatever space Mila created for them to cut through and Yuuri finds himself so tightly pushed against the rink his knees push against the walls.

“See, see,” Mila says, waving her hand empathetically. “See what they do? Take up the whole ice with this foolishness.”        

With his front-row view, Yuuri does see; it’s Viktor and Yurio skating. At first he doesn’t understand how this everyday occurrence has become an event worth gathering for, with Viktor and Yurio even skating on opposite sides of the rink. But then he watches closer, at the rise of Viktor’s skates and the twists of Yurio’s body as he lands a triple axel and it dawns on him.

They’re doing the same routine simultaneously.

It’s like watching a split screen video, except for the rare mistake from either parties that separates their performance. To his surprise even Viktor's skating is decidedly less than stellar; his legs are quivering when he lands a quad, one hand balancing his body on the ice. The mistake makes Yurio arrogant and he consequently almost trips over his step sequence.

“How long have they been doing this?” Yuuri asks because world class skaters like Viktor Nikiforov and Yuri Plisetsky don’t make amateur mistakes.

“Too long,” Mila says, shaking her head. “Their feet will be bruises, no doubt. Yaakov come, shout, no change. Maybe if you go, they will stop. Go, go, go.”

But Yuuri doesn’t think he should. There’s a determination in Viktor’s expression that he doesn’t quite recognise and he doesn’t understand. He feels small, all of a sudden. Small and naïve. There are moments like this that sprout like daises before him sometimes; moments that remind him that even though it feels like he’s known Viktor all his life, he hasn’t. It’s been a little more than a year. There are shades of Viktor lighter and darker than the shades apparent to him.

“No,” he says, letting go off the railing. “They’ll figure it out.”

Mila stares at him with an expression that clearly says she does not share the same confidence. “Sure?” she asks.

“Not really,” Yuuri admits, smiling as reassuringly as he can. “But tell Viktor, once he’s…he’s done with this, I’m at the Starbucks across the road.”

“ _Da_ ,” Mila nods. “Sure.”

And so Yuuri turns his back on the ice and Viktor Nikiforov skating on it. Right now, in this moment in time, he thinks it’s for the best.

*

 

**Author's Note:**

> All sentences in Italics means that the characters are not speaking English. It's mostly obvious what language they're speaking (Viktor and Yuri: Russian, Yuuri: Japanese, etc). I thought about using actual bits of the languages, but I think that the sudden use of a different language breaks the flow of the reader and also I harbour severe doubts for Google Translate.
> 
> The song Viktor and Yuri were listening in the car on the way back to the lake house is "Dark Necessities" by The Red Hot Chili Peppers.


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